


Dignity

by Tarlan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-09
Updated: 2005-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 04:41:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rodney screws up a mission, he ends up naked back in the gate room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dignity

**Author's Note:**

> **NELL'S CHALLENGE:** Well, since some of you enjoyed the last challenge (The John drunk one) I put out, and it did result in some very funny and wonderful stories, I decided to post another one. The idea is: _What if Rodney in some strange way winds up butt naked in front of everyone in the Gateroom. He is, of course, mortified. He runs off to his quarters to put on clothes only to discover he can't get in. Humiliated and embarrassed he goes and hides. John, of course, hunts him down, and then shows him that there are definite benefits to being naked._ I would like for this to be a first time, but you can let your creative genius decide that part. Extra kudos points if you throw a little angst in about Rodney having a bad locker room memory, and being naked in front of the jocks. (not rape though, please)

"Incoming wormhole," called Stevens, looking up as Elizabeth joined him by the Stargate controls. "It's Sheppard's IDC."

Elizabeth frowned. John's team was not due to back for another three hours. "Lower the shield."

She walked to the balcony and looked over the rail. Sheppard stepped through the event horizon, and she did not need to see his face to know he was well and truly pissed. He was also unarmed, with his Kevlar vest, sidearm and P90 missing. Teyla and Stackhouse followed, equally weaponless, and with their faces carved in stone. All three turned back as the clatter of weapons, clothing and equipment hit the gate room floor, including an item that was suspiciously science beige in color. Sheppard went straight for his sidearm, as if he felt naked without it, strapping it back on before ordering Stackhouse to pick up the rest of the items and take them out of the way. Then he stood facing the still active Stargate, legs spread slightly apart, hands on hips; he stared menacingly at the rippling blue disc.

"Where's Rodney?" Elizabeth asked softly to no one in particular, her concern rising with each passing minute.

She gasped as a naked male body tumbled through, rolling several feet but Sheppard made no attempt to go to his aid. The Stargate disconnected, leaving the gate room in ominous silence as the naked man sat up, hands in his lap to cover what was left of his shredded dignity. Sheppard shook his head and walked away, barking orders at Stackhouse to follow. Rodney raised his head towards Teyla but she turned away, following Sheppard, shaking her head in disgust.

Before Elizabeth could get halfway down the stairs, Rodney was on his feet, his face heated with acute embarrassment, desperately trying to cover himself while two remaining marines sniggered close by. His eyes caught hers, shock and distress filling them.

"Rodney?"

"Don't," he stated, backing away from her, and then he turned and fled as the sniggers became loud guffaws.

Elizabeth watched him flee, having never seen him looking so wretched and ashamed before. She decided to follow, her heart sinking when she heard giggles and loud laughter in the corridor beyond as he encountered others. Her last sight of Rodney was his miserable, shame-filled face as the transporter doors closed.

****

Rodney peeked out of the transporter, checking along the corridor while silently berating himself for the nth time that he had not chosen quarters closer to the transporter. He sighed raggedly in relief when he found only an empty corridor, paranoid enough to believe half of Atlantis would be waiting outside just to laugh at him. Gathering his dignity around him like a tattered cloak, he stepped out and walked straight into Dr. Kusanagi as she exited her quarters. She gasped; he reached out to reassure her, exposing all of himself. She shrieked, and others came running. Rodney made a dash for his quarters, so panicked that he couldn't recall the correct sequence of thoughts that would open the privacy lock. With the sound of footsteps pounding in the corridor behind him, he did the only thing he could think of--he fled again--with half-forgotten memories from high school resurfacing as he recalled the day he was cornered near the shower room by the jocks. Having already moved up two grades due to his intelligence, the jocks had labeled him a nerd and, win or lose, after a game they loved to play a new game of hunt the nerd. This time he had made the mistake of becoming their prey, enduring the humiliation when they caught him and stripped him, tying him naked to the goal post where he was too ashamed to cry for help in case anyone should witness his humiliation. The grounds man found him two hours later and set him free, offering him a grubby overall to cover his dignity.

Rodney couldn't go through that again, not with people whose respect he thought he might have earned, for the most part.

Some how he ended up back in the transporter and he slapped his hand down on the remotest point in the city; the unexplored south. He staggered out, half-blinded by unshed tears of mingled shame and frustration, walking along unfamiliar corridors for an unknown time before a door opened into a darkened room. Rodney entered what must have once been someone's home and sank into the corner of the musty room, drawing his knees up and laying his head down upon them. He stayed that way for a long time, trying hard not to think about the mission that had gone so terribly wrong. Eventually, fatigue overcame him and he curled up on his side, closing his eyes, and let his misery take him to sleep.

****

John was sitting on top of his bed, propped against the headboard with a soft pillow behind his back for comfort His legs were stretched out before him, crossed at the ankles and the heavy book was balanced on his thighs. Yet, despite the time spent in his room and the lateness of the hour, he had read only a few pages. He closed the book with a sigh, knowing he really was not in the mood to read. In truth, he was still annoyed as hell with Rodney, and had secretly hoped to catch him in the Commissary at dinner just so he could have the excuse to verbally ream him over the disaster he had caused on their last mission.

McKay had remained conspicuous by his absence. Something almost unheard of, for John was convinced Rodney had an inbuilt timer set to ring at the breakfast, lunch and dinner hour. The only time he did not appear was when he was caught up in essential work, which usually meant some disaster had befallen Atlantis.

A twinge of guilt made John wriggle uncomfortably on the bed as he recalled Rodney's face in the gate room, flushed with well-deserved embarrassment.

Probably still ashamed to show his face, he thought uncharitably, holed up in his room with a stash of PowerBars.

He dropped the heavy tome onto the bedside table and leaned back with his hands behind his head, wondering for the umpteenth time what had possessed Rodney to lift up the Hanarian matriarch's skirt. All hell had broken loose with her accusing Rodney of being a pervert; a view shared by Kusanagi after she related--to a small but obviously enthralled yet indignant crowd--running into a very naked Rodney McKay in the corridor outside her quarters.

John grinned at the thought of the timid Japanese woman coming face to face with the man she so obviously hero-worshiped while he was in a complete state of undress. In truth, coming face to face with a naked Rodney McKay was one of John's personal fantasies, one that he had entertained for some time now. However, recalling the way Rodney had come flying out of the Stargate, John sighed. Just his luck that he would gain his wish at a time when he was unable to truly appreciate it though, in hindsight, it was pretty funny.

His smile faded as he recalled the incident on Hanaria, and how the irate guards had surrounded them, removed all their weapons and marched them to the Stargate...

****

 **Ten hours earlier:**

John watched in shock when the Hanarians did not stop with merely stripping off McKay's vest, tensing when one Hanarian produced a wicked looking combat knife only to use it upon Rodney's t-shirt. His boots, socks and pants followed in swift order, leaving Rodney clad in only his boxers.

"Go back to your people in shame," the matriarch stated, her mouth a sour thin line of disgust.

The head guard, Rheso, who was also the matriarch's eldest son, shoved John towards the DHD. John had no option but to dial up the Atlantis gate. He moved towards his vest and raised his hands placatingly when Rheso took a menacing step towards him.

"I need to send a signal to let them know we are coming through."

Rheso gestured towards the pile of vests and watched carefully as John pulled out the IDC transmitter. He sent the signal but had no time to warn Atlantis of their situation before he felt a spear press hard against his back, the meaning clear.

"I'm not leaving without my people."

"Even this one?" The Hanarian asked, pointing to where a near-naked Rodney was being held in the tight grip of two burly guards.

For a moment, John was tempted to tell the Hanarians to keep McKay but, pain in the ass or not, they needed the man on Atlantis--and John was unwilling to admit to anything more than that at this minute. He was too angry to recall the movie nights listening to Rodney's sarcastic but hilarious slating of whatever film they watched, or the days spent playing with all the new toys the exploration teams had found in Atlantis. Rodney seemed to have all the best toys in his lab--much to Kavanagh's disgust--and his excitement was often contagious, leading John down new paths of thought and discovery, or simply just having fun.

Certainly, he was not going to admit to enjoying Rodney's company at meal times, or in the evenings once he had dragged him away from all those shiny new toys. And there was no way in hell that he was going to admit to the fantasies that helped him find solitary release in his bed each night.

"Yeah. Even him," he stated.

"You will leave now, Sheppard, and he will follow you...unharmed."

"O...kay." John replied, not entirely convinced but having little choice in the matter when the spear was poked into his side yet again. He hesitated on the event horizon, looking back at Rodney in a mixture of frustration and anger, silently promising to deal with the errant scientist as soon as they got back to Atlantis.

John's first real fear for McKay came when Teyla and Stackhouse came through along with all their equipment, but with no sign of Rodney except for his pants and t-shirt. When Rodney's naked body tumbled through a few minutes later, his relief at seeing him unharmed was quickly smothered by the returning anger and he stalked away. Rodney's actions had humiliated both the matriarch and the team so seeing his embarrassment was a more than fitting punishment under the circumstances.

Now, almost ten hours later, he was having a hard time recalling the last time he had spent so long without an interruption from the chief scientist on Atlantis.

"Speak of the devil," he murmured as he heard a gentle knock on his door. He commanded it open, expecting to see a contrite Rodney McKay standing on the threshold but was surprised to see Teyla instead. John stood up out of courtesy.

"Teyla. Is there a problem?"

"It is Doctor McKay."

John felt his stomach flip uneasily. "And what's he done now?"

"No one has seen him since we returned from Hanaria."

"Oh, I expect he's just hiding out in his room."

"Doctor Beckett overrode the controls when he did not answer his door. He was not there...and I do not believe he has been in there since we came back."

John was tempted to point out that Rodney's next favorite haunt was his laboratory but he knew Teyla would not have come to him if she had not already checked out all the obvious places. Then he recalled the incident with Kusanagi, who had quarters close to McKay's. What if her shock on seeing him sent him into a blind panic, running away from his room?

John grabbed his sidearm and strapped it on and noticed Teyla eyeing him strangely.

"I may have to shoot him," he snarled but his rising eyebrow gentled his harsh words and brought a quirky, sympathetic smile to her face.

John set off for the control room and stood over Gregson, Steven's replacement who had taken over night duty. With an ease that no longer amazed him, John pulled up the city sensors, looking for any anomalies. He was not certain how he knew the difference between the blips but he could tell which of these were ordinary humans, and which had the ATA gene.

Beckett had not yet found the reason why the gene therapy worked on less than half of the people tested but, as Rodney was his first success, John concentrated on the blips depicting those with the ATA gene. Several of them were clustered in the medical areas but Beckett would have contacted him if Rodney had shown up there. He ignored those and moved on, seeing the tiny knot in the area used by the military personnel, probably Stackhouse and the new group pilots. He could see no blips in the outer areas but many of the sensors were still not working following ten thousand years of shield erosion, the storm, and the too-recent wraith attack.

He stopped to muse out loud. "Where would he go?"

Teyla raised an eyebrow. "He often seeks comfort in food."

John frowned. "Yeah...but no one saw him in the Commissary at dinner. Was there any sign that he'd been to his lab?"

"No. His laptop remains untouched, and Doctor Zelenka remarked that none of Doctor McKay's PowerBars are missing."

"What if he was panicking?"

John pointed to the transporter closest to Rodney's quarters, where he was last seen by Kusanagi. He traced his finger through the corridors leading to Rodney's room.

"He panics...and he either can't get in or he doesn't want to be found so he keeps on running past his room," John murmured, tracing along to the next junction. "He's too panicked to have a plan except get away fast, and he has a natural tendency to go left, which takes him to..."

John looked at Teyla as his finger went full circle around the living quarters and back to the transporter. She took it from there.

"He could have gone anywhere in the city."

"Normally, I'd say we limit the search to areas deemed safe but..."

"If he was panicking, and yet still upset from his ordeal on Hanaria, he might want to go where there would be no others?"

"Exactly."

John looked at the city map. "I'll go south," he stated.

"I will take the east of the city."

They moved to the transporter closest to the control room and John allowed Teyla to step in first. Although neither of them said anything, John knew they were both missing Ford right now. When the doors reopened, she was gone. He stepped in and allowed his gut instinct to select one of the three transporter stations in the unexplored south.

When the door opened, John knew he had found Rodney's trail by the pile of turned-to-dust leaves lying beneath a long-dead potted plant. McKay must have stumbled into it, or brushed against it. He walked for a while, feeling no sense of a presence behind any of the closed doors, but froze when one door opened as he passed by. Stepping into the darkened room, he saw a pale shape huddled in one corner.

John sighed when he saw Rodney curled up into a ball on the dusty ground. He could see the slight rise and fall of his chest and knew he was sleeping. For once, John felt indecisive, not certain if he wanted to wake McKay or let him sleep.

God knows the man could use some sleep, he thought, knowing Rodney had trouble sleeping since the wraith attack, and the loss of so many friends and colleagues in short succession. John moved back into the corridor and tapped his radio to contact Teyla.

"I've found him."

"Is he well?"

"He looks fine...he's asleep. I'll wake him and bring him back. Just need to have a word with him first."

"Do not be too hard on him. I believe he has suffered sufficiently."

John re-entered the room and concentrated on the lights, relieved when they reacted by glowing softly, shedding a little more light on the naked figure curled in the corner. He had seen Rodney partially naked several times since they first met in Antarctica and recalled the time when Rodney tripped over a tree root and fell face first into the mud. John had laughed so hard that he was certain he was going to rupture something. Of course, McKay had been pissed, sending caustic comments about not being so juvenile that only made him laugh harder. Even slipping and falling into the same mud had not dampened his spirits that day, and the pair of them had looked a lot worse after the ensuing, and quite literal mud slinging that followed. They had washed away some of the mud in the river, stripping down to their underwear--much to Teyla's amusement--while she and Ford stood guard, watching out for any crocodiles, piranha or other man-eating beasts, just to placate Rodney.

He looked at Rodney now, feeling a little guilty at his open appraisal of the naked man but taking full advantage of the opportunity nonetheless. Rodney had found stillness in sleep that was never apparent during his waking moments. Hands that normally spoke as much as his mouth lay wrapped around his body in an awkward embrace. His exposed thigh and ass were not as plump as they appeared in the baggy pants he wore, the firm curves holding just a little extra flesh over muscle and bone. His back was broad, perhaps not narrowing to his waist in a perfect V, and yet John preferred his softer lines with the muscles not so harshly defined. Soft living and a sedentary lifestyle might have added those layers originally but the harsh reality of life here in the Pegasus galaxy had burned away most of the excess now, leaving him perfect in John's eyes.

How many times had he fantasized about watching Rodney sleep, heavy and naked beside him? Once more, one of his fantasies had not turned out to be exactly all that he had hoped for, but he could not deny that McKay was a beautiful sight.

With a sigh bordering on frustration, John pulled off his jacket and gently placed it over the sleeping man. He smiled when Rodney snuggled into it but the well-meaning action had started to pull him back from his deep sleep. Awareness returned slowly, and John watched a gentle smile grown on the sleepy face before memories resurfaced.

Rodney sat up abruptly, tightly gripping John's jacket over his naked body, but it could not conceal everything. With shock, John yanked back the jacket, needing to find the origin of the dried blood on McKay's inner thigh but Rodney had other ideas, snatching back the jacket in indignation. His eyes softened when he saw John's shock and confusion, his face flushing in embarrassment.

"They said...if I'm going to act like a child then I should look like one."

"They shaved...all of it?"

"Not quite," he replied tersely, "But next time someone holds a razor-sharp blade to my groin, I'm not going to struggle."

John hissed sharply, in sympathy, but at least everything was still present and accounted for...except for his pubic hairs.

"Beckett should check out that cut, in case it gets infected."

"I..." Rodney looked away, as if trying to find words, which was unusual for the normally quick-tongued man. He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry."

"Was that an apology from Doctor Rodney McKay?"

McKay looked up, any contriteness disappearing from his face. "Don't expect one too often."

"Oh, I won't. Still, it's a moment for posterity, so would you mind shutting up while I bask in the moment?"

"Ha ha, very funny. Have you ever thought of taking the act to Vaudeville?"

John sat back and stared at McKay. "Can you at least tell me what the hell possessed you to dive under her skirt?"

"I didn't...I'm mean, I did but not for the reason..." He fell silent, dragging a hand through his sleep-mussed hair until it looked as good as John's. John wished he had a camera so he could show the image to McKay every time he insulted John's hair.

"McKay?" John intoned his name softly but in a tone demanding answers.

"Energy readings," he stated abruptly. "Same pattern as Teyla's locket. She had a wraith device on her anklet and I was...I panicked. What if our proximity had somehow activated it and then the wraith would come and we'd all be captured-"

"Rodney."

"-And they'd take us up to their hive ships and we'd have the life sucked out of-"

"McKay!"

The panic in his eyes dampened and then he realized that John had grabbed his arms and was holding him.

"I-I panicked...and no one would listen because-"

"Because they thought you were a pervert trying to look up the matriarch's skirts."

Rodney slumped, mumbling softly. "There probably wasn't a relay device on that world anyway but we ought to go back...just in case the wraith come and...and..."

He looked so miserable that John pulled him into his arms and hugged him. "It's okay. I'll talk to Teyla, and see if Halling would agree to a little diplomatic mission."

"Okay," came a muffled reply but when John tried to let go, Rodney wrapped his arms tighter around John, making John feel very uncomfortable for all the wrong reasons. He liked the feel of the naked body in his arms, wishing his own skin was bare against Rodney's, feeling the direct heat of flesh on flesh. He cleared his throat.

"We need to get you to Beckett for a check up; make sure sleeping rough hasn't made you susceptible to anything still hanging-"

Rodney pulled back in concern. "You don't think it's possible-"

"No," drawled John. "I'm just covering all bases," he added with a reassuring smile, wishing he had not mentioned it now even though it had the desired effect of making Rodney let go.

"You're sure? I mean, you don't have a doctorate in medical sciences so you can't know for certain and...Oh No...What if this floor is littered in more of those nanoviruses, or something worse-"

"Rodney-"

"I might have been exposed to ten thousand year ol-"

When John pulled back from the kiss he had planted on Rodney's lips, just to shut him up, Rodney's eyes were as big as saucers, and the most incredible blue.

"You kissed me."

"It worked didn't it?" John stated a little hoarsely, only now recognizing the effect it had on him as he tried to pass it off as a joke.

""What?" He was searching John's face in confusion before returning to his previous stunned exclamation. "You kissed me."

"It was just a little kiss."

"There was tongue."

"No there wasn't."

"Yes there was. There was definitely tongue-"

John kissed him again, this time refusing to hold back as he plunged his tongue into the open mouth, striping over soft palate and dueling with Rodney for full possession of his mouth. He sucked and nibbled at the firm lips, slowly releasing Rodney from his kiss.

Silence.

John stared at Rodney who was staring back at him as if John had grown a second head. Then a smile started at the corner of his mouth, his eyes losing the confusion and filling with awe and some other indefinable emotion. His hand rose, fingers brushing over his swollen lips.

"You kissed me."

"I think we established that."

"Yes...yes, I know but...but you kissed me."

John was starting to wonder if it had been such a wise move, though he had to admit that kissing Rodney had been far better than he'd ever imagined, even in his wildest dreams.

"You have a problem with me kissing you?"

"Yes...No."

John leaned in and kissed him again but, this time, Rodney met him halfway, wrapping his arms around John's torso and melting into the kiss with a passion that was simply breathtaking. His own hands reached for naked flesh, kneading the strong back muscles and playing with the short strands of hair on the nape of Rodney's neck. None of his fantasies could come close to the feel of Rodney all hot and naked in his arms, in spite of him wearing too many clothes, and John knew how to rectify that. He pulled back from Rodney's embrace, quickly pulling off his t-shirt and slinging it aside before rolling on top of Rodney, diving in for more kisses. John felt fingers fumbling at the webbing securing his sidearm, casting the holster and gun aside before tugging at the button and zipper of his pants. His wriggled and raised his hips, allowing Rodney to tug down his pants and underwear in one go, his eyebrows rising when he thrust back, groin to strangely hairless groin. It was weird not feeling coarse hairs rubbing against his hard cock, weird in an amazingly erotic way, sending waves of pleasure cascading over him.

They didn't last long, rubbing and thrusting, kissing and moaning as the sensations overwhelmed them, sending John soaring into orbit before spiraling back down to Atlantis, the heat of their combined release lying sticky and damp between their hard-pressed bellies. Kisses gentled in their intensity, and tense fingers loosened their tight grip as the last heady sensations buzzed between them.

John pushed his hand between their bodies, feeling the stickiness of spent passion and the silkiness of freshly shaved flesh.

"I could get to like this," he murmured.

"Not a chance," Rodney replied and John laughed. "What?"

"Oh...just remembering the look on her face when you dived under her dress." He sniggered and then yelped when Rodney pinched him hard. "And when you came rolling...through the...Stargate," he gasped, trying not to laugh but failing miserably.

Rodney's lips twitched. "Kusanagi's face when she stepped out of her room and saw me standing there..."

"You should have seen the expressions on the faces of everyone she told..."

"She told?" Rodney groaned. "Now everyone will think I'm a pervert." He slumped back but John digged him in the ribs.

"They can think what they will...but I'll be the only one to know for sure from now on." John smiled, hoping Rodney would not choose this moment to be incredibly dense.

"You mean that?"

John sat up and glanced sideways at him. "Only if you promise not to dive under any more skirts...or delve into anyone else's pants."

"Oh, I can be exclusive...if the same rules apply to you. No more alien priestesses."

"I think I can manage that." John pushed up from the floor and stretched down a hand to his newfound lover, pulling Rodney from the dusty floor. He frowned, captivated once more by Rodney's nakedness. "Should have brought some extra clothes with me."

Rodney bent over and picked up John's boxers and pants, throwing the boxers at John and quickly pulling on the baggy pants. "Problem solved," he grinned and, for once, John simply smiled as he pulled on the boxers and his t-shirt for, at this moment in time, with the pleasure still thrumming through to every nerve ending, he would have given Rodney anything he asked for, including his dignity.

THE END


End file.
